


Circles

by Xenjn



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Hush - Freeform, M/M, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:17:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2489081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenjn/pseuds/Xenjn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wears the jade pendent he ripped from Hush’s grip around his neck. It is, at best, a risk. At worst it may reveal him, get him killed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circles

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the HUSH comics written by Jeff Loeb. (Not the ones by Paul Dini) With the head cannon that Batman ripped the necklace off of Hush during their fight on the bridge. Unbeta'd. Bruce/Tommy if you squint. 
> 
> For Jazy~~

He wears the jade pendent he ripped from Hush’s grip around his neck. It is, at best, a risk. At worst it may reveal him, get him killed. Even so, for all his caution, all his paranoia, he refuses to give it up, refuses to lock it away in the endless cabinets of evidence that continue to line the walls of the cave, ever growing.

Bruce keeps it around his neck and when Tim, or even Alfred seems to catch a glimpse of it he finds himself struck with the child like urge to cup his hands around the cool jade, to recoil from them, from the world, slide into the shadows until he and his secret are invisible to all. Stupid. Pathetic.

But he wears it all the same and it’s _heavy_ . Unnaturally so. The weight of it isn’t something he grows accustomed to with the passage of time, no, he is constantly aware of it, of the memories carved into the cool jade, of the half imagined scent of blood that clings to the surface. It lingers there, as if a silent witness to all the sins Tommy has ever committed, sins he’s never known, never allowed himself to imagine.

It’s a witness to his own sins as well, to memories he thought long buried in the dirt, to a time before the sharp scent of burning gun powder filled his nostrils, before the sound of gunshots echoed and filled the crevasses of his mind. Bruce touches the pendant, brushes fingertips over its shape as his body moves through the days, with eyes far too wide for the persona he adopts, constantly searching for movement, for shifts, oddities among the teeming masses.

Thomas Elliot is not dead. All evidence points otherwise, the weight around his neck screams otherwise, but there are small places within him, where blood stained alleyways cannot touch, where hope still persists in digging its roots deep and heavy, until he’s all but forced to believe.

It holds on, like Bruce once held on to his aching cheek, skin swelling where Tommy punched him with tear stained cheeks for breaking his promise. It holds on, like Tommy held onto smoking pistols with arms outstretched, eyes narrowing onto their target.

Bruce wears the jade pendant around his neck, when he bathes, when he bleeds. Wears it and comes to understand what is means. Life is a circle, no one moment is absolute, it moves, comes back upon itself. Nothing is ever truly gone, nothing is ever truly dead, and one day, some day, Tommy will come back for it again.


End file.
